From Napster punk to music prodigy

His title is "business bro" and he likes playing skateboarding video games, but at just 28, Jai Al-Attas is a Gen Y prodigy.

He started a punk rock music label, Below Par Records, with his mates at Kingsgrove High School in Sydney when he was just 16, and sold it to EMI in 2009 when it was representing major bands like Kisschasy.

Jai Al-Attas started a record label in high school, now he's helping bands go direct to fans via apps.

He then moved to LA and made a documentary about the rise of punk rock in America in the 90s, interviewing bands such as Green Day and Blink 182. Aside from a brief airing on YouTube, the doco, narrated by pro skateboarder Tony Hawk, never saw the light of day because Al-Attas couldn't afford the hundreds of thousands of dollars in music clearances required for an official release.

Jai Al-Attas started a record label in high school, now he's helping bands go direct to fans via apps.

But this is no record label. Al-Attas and some partners have created technology for bands, brands and athletes to create their own apps without knowing a line of code.

His high school passion has sustained him well beyond the point where most decide to get a "real job".

"People might think it's kind of schizophrenic but it's really not because it's all still based around the things that i'm passionate about, which is the cross-section of entertainment and technology," he said.

The apps, many already on the iOS and Android app stores, can be used to sell merchandise or concert tickets and offer fans shareable content such as news, tour dates, photos and videos. Bands can create the apps themselves using Zappp's online tool.

Matt Corby's app.

But for fans the most valuable feature is the ability for brands, bands and athletes to target them with exclusive goodies. The special fan offers are location-based so they can, for instance, choose to offer fans attending their concert a backstage pass or merchandise discounts via the app.

"You could take it a step further and a band could record an album and they might record two extra tracks that are app-exclusive but the way that you get the app is you get rewarded on your birthday; 'hey happy birthday here's a an exclusive track that's not on our album'," Al-Attas said.

The Living End's app.

"All the stuff that you're giving to the fan might actually cost the band nothing like meet and greets but it's actually really valuable to the fan."

But for such a hardcore music lover, he had a surprising admission: "I wouldn't have got into the music industry if it wasn't for Napster."

Australian surfer Taj Burrow's app.

He acknowledged that the illegal file sharing service was the catalyst for the decline of CD sales but said he used Napster to find many of the unsigned punk bands he recruited for his record label.

"Obviously I bought CDs but Napster opened up a whole new world ... the labels were just too slow to pick up on it and realise how powerful the internet was going to be."

Al-Attas, who lives in Haberfield in Sydney's inner west, is currently in Los Angeles, where he is launching Australian professional surfer Taj Burrow's app at the Nike US Open of Surfing. Other sports people he's signed include world champion Australian snowboarder Alex Pullin and a professional BMX rider from the US named Mike Spinner.

"There's no doubt that people are consuming more and more on their phones these days and to have my content available in their pockets is pretty awesome," said Burrow.

"The fact that I can ZAPPP people who own my app exclusives not available anywhere else is also another plus."

Al-Attas is also over in the US to sign up more brands to Zappp and has already launched an app for Macbeth Footwear, a shoe company owned by one of the members of Blink 182.

He has been working on Zappp for over a year and the company is completely bootstrapped, which means it hasn't taken outside investment. He received a small government grant as part of the GENERATE program to stimulate the music industry.

Al-Attas is used to stretching his cash, as when Below Par Records began it had just $1200 to its name. Their first big hit was signing For Amusement Only, a unknown band then which went on to sell 10,000 copies of their CD. That was the break Al-Attas had been looking for.

Zappp has been earning revenue from pretty much day one, and is now charging personalities and brands who want to create apps a monthly subscription fee of $9.95 for the basic version and $89 for the full pro version.

The company is sponsoring the music industry's BigSound 2012 conference in Brisbane in September and will build the official conference app.

Asher Moses is the Technology Editor for Fairfax Media. He started his own gadget review website more than a decade ago at age 14 and has since written for most of Australia's leading technology publications. He has twice been named Young Australian Online Journalist of the Year by the Walkley Foundation.